GE Ice Makers Dispense Cool, Refreshing Razor Blades

By consumerist.comJune 19, 2006

It’s a sultry June, so what better time to have a nice, refreshing glass of ice to quench your summer thirst? But if you’ve got a GE refrigerator with built-in ice dispenser, watch out! You may find yourself with a throat full of jagged metal shards, your thirst to be quenched not by water’s magical solid state but instead by the copper gore bubbling from your esophagus’s shredded plush lining.

The deterioration of the GE WR30X10061 starts with little pieces of translucent plastic breaking off the liner and being distributed into the drinks. These immediately enter your blood stream upon ingestion and cause urinary tract dysfunction as well as mini-strokes. If you don’t replace the ice liner at this point, the GE refrigerator will then kindly up the ante, thoughtfully distributing razor blades to clink and tinkle in your gin & tonics.

GE is fully aware of the problem; they don’t really care. “Again, instances of metal shavings dispensed from ice makers are rare and this is probably related to the same problem that causes plastic to break — when the ice maker is trying to dispense ice that has frozen together,” said one rep.

That sounds like a rare problem, alright: the ice dispenser only dispenses razor-sharp metal shards when it tries to dispense frozen ice. Certainly not a problem worthy of a recall.